Mois : juin 2020

I can’t seem to find a lot of info about these people – I know they make third party lenses for Nikon, Fuji etc. and that their ‘site’ seems to be a Facebook page (hardly a site…)

I purchased mine from the NikonRumors site/blog as the site admin made these available to the readers. This one came from Singapore but they are available in Europe – at pretty much the same price of around 200€ – this is an excellent lens for the price – we’re not expecting Leitz-standard quality – be reasonable guys – but I’m frankly well pleased with the few test shots I’ve done today.

This lens is a full-frame, manual focus, fisheye (not a circular image) with a comparatively ‘fast’ aperture of f/2.8. Judging by the weight (556g) it is a mostly metal construction, and as there are no electrical contacts or ‘aperture feeler’ the lens is constantly stopped down to whatever is chosen on the aperture ring. This has an obvious effect on what you see in the viewfinder – the image will darken or lighten for a few seconds as you change aperture until the camera ‘corrects’ the exposure change (by changing the shutter speed).

The lens arrived via DHL this afternoon, and within 30 seconds I was tearing it out of the box… It’s a very compact lens – with a very interesting focusing scale…0.17, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, 0.5, 1m – infinity. So basically there’s really not much point adding autofocus anyway – virtually everything is in focus from 1m to infinity, without turning the ring at all! (At f/8 the effective depth of field is from 0.4m to infinity.)

If you put a genuine Nikon rear lens cap (LF-N1) onto the Nikon Z bayonet, the fit is, how can I say this, ‘approximate’ – or ‘loose’ – however, the cap supplied with the lens works perfectly. The front lens cap is metal with a foam lining which needs a slight pressure to pull-off. Good move, as front lens caps that just slide off on their own are not terribly useful.

Obviously there is no filter thread, and the domed front element is quite pronounced. There is no provision for sliding gelatin filters behind the lens (on the mount side) either.

As there are no electrical contacts, no information will be passed back to the processing engine in the camera – what are you expecting with a 200$ manual focus lens?! This means that no aperture or distance information will be recorded in the EXIF data – obviously it’s a good idea to programme the lens as a ‘non CPU lens’ on the camera body, but strangely, on the Z6/7 the range of options for ‘focal length’ jump from 8mm to 13mm – time for an updated firmware Nikon?? (Note: this is due to the fact that Nikon imagine that you will only ever mount Nikkor lenses on the camera, and the focal lengths correspond to Nikkor lenses…)

Here it is, wearing one of my favourite Hyperion straps (A red binding version is en route for the Z6)

Held virtually horizontally, this is simply a wide angle lens…

But tilt it up a bit and interesting things happen! As you can see (click on the image for a larger view) there is a bit of lens flare – but nothing we can’t cope with, with a little judicious Lightrooming…

As I’m a fan of ultra-wides, I’m already looking forward to putting this through it’s paces in extreme environments – we have a cathedral in our town which could be interesting to use as a test bed…

As you can see, there’s a fair amount of vignetting (which can be corrected, more or less, in Lightroom). This doesn’t particularly bother me anyway….

No (post) correction

With +76 post-crop vignetting correction

This is the story of a ‘fantasy’ lens – a lens that, in it’s original manufacturers form, would cost an arm and two legs, but has been produced in a slightly simpler, and much cheaper form by the simple expedient of manufacturing it in China…

Welcome the TTArtisans 11mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens. This is a full-frame fisheye (not a circular image) and one of the things that appeals is the price – 199€ shipped! Mine is apparently on a plane from Singapore at the moment, and as soon as it arrives I’ll post some images – watch this space.

As a fan of ultra-wide angle lenses, this conforms to my requirements – it would be idiotic to complain about distorsion, or color fringes at this price, and with such a wide angle, ridiculous to expect edge to edge sharpness wide open.

This particular lens is designed for the Nikon Z mount, so I’ll be able to use this on my Z series camera bodies without the FTZ mount – the lens is also very compact, so I’m looking forward to carrying this around as I won’t feel my arm is being pulled off by the weight of the lens and body.

This lens is also manual focus – which is never a problem with ultra-wides as it’s much easier to set the focus distance at 3m, shoot at f/8 and EVERYTHING will be in focus anyway. The auto-focus motors and engineering are also what help to increase the price of the lens…I’m happy with this.

So, we’ll have to wait a few days to see…come on DHL….

Or should I say, ‘collection’ ? I’ve just splashed out on this little beauty.

This is one of the series of f/1.8 prime lenses that Nikon produce for the Z series cameras.

It is astonishingly sharp, across the frame, even wide open – there will always be people who complain about the quality of the ‘bokeh’ but frankly, I’m more concerned about the sharp bits rather than the blobs that are out-of-focus.

I stumbled across this on the site ‘Leboncoin’ (a site where people sell off all they don’t want, can’t use etc.) and the man selling it seemed a bit odd….he had purchased the lens a few weeks ago, had never used it, and was now selling it at 2/3 the price. I had to take a closer look.

So I drove over to Libourne, near Bordeaux, and met the chap in a carpark (very secure!) – turns out he’s one of the breed who believe EVERYTHING written in photo magazines, and as such, had decided that he prefered zoom lenses and that this lens wasn’t for him., without even bothering to actually put the lens on the camera and try it…

Anyway, everything checked out – he had the bill, I saw his ID card and the name was the same on the bill…

Now all I have to do is try it out! This shot is hardly a definitive test, but it does show the lens is VERY sharp!

Just when you thought you’d identified the ‘prime’ dickhead in the world, and were about to have the t-shirt printed, the flags made etc. up pops another one – must be the season.

I should explain – I used to have a gay friend – very competent photographer in fact, and he has a Flickr feed, like me. We came across each other a few years ago, on Facebook of all places, and enjoyed a few months friendship, losely based around things photographic.

He, like me, is a bit of a gear-addict, and together we have amassed a considerable arsenal of equipment, some of which is actually useful…but a lot of it not…

Our ‘friendship’ frittered and died, and for a few years we had no exchanges, until a few months ago where our collective sarcasm had calmed itself, and we were again able to enjoy reasonable conversations – and I must say, a number of very nice lunches.

Sadly that waned too as I just couldn’t get my head around the snide comments. From time time, when REALLY bored, I take a look at what’s going on over on Flickr, and lo and behold, I tumbled onto my old friends feed – obviously his equipment addiction hasn’t calmed at all, and the object of his latest series of ‘product shots’ is a new tripod.

And very nice it is too (well, everything bar the price, which is slightly on the high side…an arm and THREE legs?) and his images were perfection, as usual. However, in the ‘comments’ section I read comments from someone who was visibly FAR from impressed. I decided (I told you I was bored…) to go and take a look at what his Flickr feed had to offer – what did I find?

A clone of my gay friend! Flowers, product shots – and all the ‘dross’ I used to complain about (jokingly) on my friends feed.

I went further – after reading several chapters of this blokes ‘bio’ on Flickr I discovered he has a blog AND a website.

This is basically Mr Grumpy all over again – nothing, but nothing is ever right, or to his exacting requirements. He owns EVERYTHING, he has, to date, purchased 24 Nikon Z7s, and is certainly not afraid to tell you – why oh why would the fact that he owns a « Neewer backdrop paper stand » be of any interest – to anyone? More to the point, how would this information help me understand how to make decent photographs etc.?

The only thing of interest was, undeniably, the fact that he has less Nikon equipment than me – yo! But frankly, I couldn’t give a damn. Guy sounds like a real jerk -although we don’t talk, I rather hope my gay friend feels the same way – I would hate for him to be « under the influence » of such a tool….

Oh, one last thing – the rant concerning the Nikon Z7 was that the menu system was in English and Chinese – after freely admitting he would only ever use English for the menus, he complained because he’s buying a grey-market camera, and therefore paying considerably less than shop price, and complaining that something he’ll never use, isn’t present – what REALLY surprised me is the fact that there’s actually a firmware update which can fix this – for free – no unpleasant bending – wrestle poodles and win.

One last, last but by no means least, thing – apparently this idiot REALLY dislikes animated Gifs being used in comments to his photos – OMG it’s like a red rag to a bull….. how will I be able to resist….